About

The goal of the Disaster Behavioral Health Project is to develop human infrastructure in Nebraska to effectively mitigate or respond to the psycho-social consequences of terrorism and disaster. Read more...

Conference 2018
The 2018 Great Plains Disaster Behavioral Health Conference will be held in Omaha, Nebraska on July 20.

Current Training

National Incident Management System Independent Study Program - Current Courses. This web page contains links to the current Independent Study Program courses, many of which are required for registered disaster behavioral health volunteers in Nebraska. Volunteers should check with their regional/local volunteer coordinator for specific required courses.

Nebraska Disaster Behavioral Health NIMS Training Requirements

Position/Role

IS-100

IS-200

300*

400*

IS-700

IS-800

IS-775

PFA-trained responder in the field
(includes: local volunteers and most BHERT members)

X

X

X

X

Responsible for supervision of BH responders
(includes: some BHERT members, Region clinical supervisors or others that Regions or State would designate as supervisors)

X

X

X

X

X

Responsible for coordination of BH response
(includes: Region and State Disaster Behavioral Health Coordinators, and possibly others at the Region or State level)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

*ICS-300 and ICS-400 are not offered as online independent study (IS) courses. Local emergency managers can provide information on when these courses are offered in your area and across the state.

Training Materials

Free Curriculum Materials:
Cultural Competency for Disaster Preparedness and Crisis Response
Have you experienced a time when you did not know how to best serve a diverse patient population before, after, or during a disaster? Did you know that racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to suffer worse outcomes than the general population during every phase of a disaster?

A set of courses designed to "integrate knowledge, attitudes, and skills related to cultural competency in order to help lessen racial and ethnic health care disparities brought on by disaster situations" is now available free of charge!
Hosted by the US Department of Health and Human Services, these courses introduce skills in real-life scenarios so that they can be more easily adopted into your own environment.
Some of the skills introduced are:

Webinar (video): The Social Vulnerability Approach to Disasters (originally presented April 1, 2013)
Provides an overview of the human, social, and economic factors that make people more vulnerable to the effects of disaster and provides a discussion of the implications for public health planners, emergency managers, and first responders.

Nebraska Psychological First Aid Curriculum Click this link to be directed to the registration page. In order to download the materials, please complete the survey. Nebraska Psychological First Aid is an 8-hour training program, which equips natural helpers with the critical skills necessary to provide long and short-term psychological support to survivors of critical events.

This website is part of a coordinated effort on behalf of the U.S. Federal Government and the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health, Division of Behavioral Health and the University of Nebraska Public Policy Center funded in part by Federal Award #6 NU90TP921891-01-03, funded by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, or the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health. Images of Nebraska in the header are courtesy of Flickr users AtmosNews - NCAR & UCAR, Jory'z Shotz, jrbrubaker, and Asbestos Bill. The images are used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.